No Footprints

by Susan Dunlap

  I laughed.

  "It was all over the media. She didn’t even attempt an apology. Just arrogant. And clueless.”

  "That’s so annoying, isn’t it?” But, of course, he missed my point.

  Enough of him! If Jessica Silverman was here and I missed her, because of Warren Llekko . . . ! I turned and asked a woman in a nearby group if she knew her. When she shook her head, I moved to another trio. But I didn’t fare any better with them. Mac was visible on the dais haranguing the frail woman in green. Her back was to me, showing her stiffly hunched shoulders. Her whole posture said long suffering. Adamé was talking to someone though with nowhere near the animation. The two of them reminded me of the contrasting picture of girls and boys relating: the two little girls facing each other, the boys staring straight ahead but talking just the same. In all his gesturing and moving Mac had edged a bit in front of Adamé, and his whole being implored the frail woman: "Assure me I’m more than him.”

  Near the dais, watching, stood Declan Serrano.

  I edged farther away, asked another group for Jessica Silverman, and a third. Despite my hunch I was startled when the next person I asked indicated a tall gray-haired woman in a silver silk suit with a sapphire brooch. It was the woman Serrano’d been with a few minutes ago. Close up she looked even more elegant. "Darcy Lott,” I introduced myself. "I called this afternoon.”

  Jessica Silverman wore silver? It made me smile. But I could see why she’d made the choice. "As I said, I’m interested in the Ginger Rampono Fund.”

  If she thought I wasn’t potential benefactor material, she was cool about it. There’s too much new money in the Bay Area to be sure of anyone’s status. "Ginger’s fund’s just that, a bank account set up for her. She’s one of the girls under our overall umbrella.”

  I nodded. Few things are as easy as getting the head of any charity to talk about it. "You just got a large gift, I heard.”

  "A terrific one. Enough to send her to the perfect prep school and then on to college. If she’s careful, there’ll be enough for a year or two of graduate work.”

  As I made a properly appreciative face, she spotted someone, flickered her fingers in a wave, and looked slightly abashed as she turned back to me. "We do have reliable regular donors—our honoree’s wife for one. He gets the attention—and well deserved—but she’s created a small but ongoing payment fund for such young girls.”

  "For Ginger Rampono?”

  "And others. But Ginger, yes. We were going to have a little ceremony this morning, right here actually, to honor the generosity of San Franciscans and show how one special contribution can change a girl’s life.”

  The mélange of talk, silk rustling, and shoe leather against the marble floor was growing louder. I leaned in toward her. "All that for two hundred twenty dollars?”

  "You’re missing a couple zeroes and some change.”

  "Two hundred twenty thou? You sure?” I’d meant the two hundred and twenty dollars Tessa had sent, the twenty-buck increase from her monthly two hundred. What was she talking about?

  "Believe me.” She paused, lifted her glass to her lips, and considered me. She may possibly have drunk some of the wine, too.

  "To be in that accident and then to be put into foster care . . .”

  "So you know her?”

  I made a sound too soft to hear over the buzzing echoes in the room, letting her translate it into what she wanted to hear.

  She nodded. "Of course, virtually no child enters foster care without experiencing problems. But being with other kids acting out—well, I’m sure you get the picture. Ginger’s the kind of youngster who might be overlooked. I oversee a lot of small funds for children, but with her, I worried. She needs someone to push her, to care.”

  "Two hundred thou! Someone cared.”

  "Yes.”

  "And Tessa Jurovik’s two hundred a month—”

  "How’d you know it was every month?” She was staring right at me, with a look of suspicion that seemed to surprise her every bit as much as it unnerved me.

  How was definitely not a topic I wanted to get into. I went with the know part. "Tessa’s contributions were all the more impressive considering how little she had herself.”

  Silverman hesitated. She still looked wary. Before I’d brought up Tessa, we’d been on safe turf, discussing nothing that hadn’t been in the news at some point. Now discretion battled curiosity. I needed to push a bit.

  "Do you know Tessa?” As well as I do? my tone indicated. I’d used this technique so often now I felt like I did know Tessa.

  "Not really. Other than last Friday’s call our contact’s mostly been email. Once or twice she dropped off checks but I didn’t see her.”

  "She must have been ecstatic when she heard about that huge donation.”

  Silverman hesitated.

  "You told her, didn’t you?”

  "It’s not our policy to reveal—”

  "But surely, after all those years of penny pinching to make her contribution every month, surely you let her know.”

  "Please don’t repeat this. But, as you say, how could I not share that wonderful news? Not the source. We never reveal a donor’s name without permission. Not until the donor does, at any rate.”

  "Here? Tonight?” I couldn’t believe my luck. From somewhere to our left I heard the sound of shattering glass. It was all I could do now not to turn, but I didn’t dare break our contact.

  Her attention shifted. "Weren’t you with him?” She was looking toward the dais—looking at Mac.

  He was on the dais, waving his arms, but to what purpose I couldn’t tell. Nor did I want to know. I needed to get him out of here before he ruined not only his reputation but Jed’s and mine.

  Yet I was so close. "Jessica, will the announcement be here?”

  "Here? No, no. This isn’t that kind of event. It’s small potatoes in this crowd, a couple hundred thou.” As if to instruct, she informed me, "A contribution says as much about the contributor as the beneficiary. No one announces a gift without considering the economic, the social, and the business ramifications.”

  "But didn’t you announce it this morning, at the little celebration you mentioned?”

  For the first time she looked shaken. With great effort I stood silent and waited.

  "Ginger”—she raised her voice over the roar behind me—"was nicked by a car in an intersection that morning and she was too upset—”

  "Omigod, like when her mother died?”

  "No, nothing like, except the intersection part. Ginger was just walking across the street and a bumper scraped her shin. She’s okay. But she’ll be glad to get out of the city. It was unnerving for her.”

  "So how’s it not like the accident with her mother?” I’d raised my voice to be heard over the din.

  "I thought you knew about Ginger. Don’t you—”

  "Just tell me!” I practically shouted.

  But she was no longer paying attention to anything I was saying. Automatically I followed her gaze.

  Mac was mimicking pulling up and back, and—oh shit!—pointing at me. He had to be carrying on about me pulling Tessa back on the bridge. I dropped my purse, bent down, and took my time getting back up.

  Now Mac was shoving the honoree, Adamé. Shoving him! Like this was a schoolyard. There was a space around the two of them and the older woman honoree. She was too close to them. Adamé said something. Mac shouted. He grabbed Adamé by the shoulders and gave him a hard push, sending him backward. For an instant I thought Adamé was going to fall, but he steadied himself. He raised an arm. He was going to sock Mac!

  I needed to get out of here fast. Do it before Mac’s outburst engulfed me, our movie, and Jed’s and my good names.

  I grabbed Jessica Silverman’s arm. "Ginger Rampono’s accident today—how was it different from the one a few years ago?”

  She looked startled.

  "Look, it’s a matter of public record!”

  Still she didn’t speak for
a moment. "It didn’t have to happen.” She sighed. "Ginger was in the passenger seat. She wasn’t wearing a seat belt. Her mother was driving. No seat belt, either. Mrs. Rampono swerved, hit the gas instead of the brake, lost control, slammed a wall. Just missed three pedestrians.”

  "Why?”

  "A bike messenger cut in front of them.”

  "What happened to him?” To her?

  I could guess the answer before she spoke. "Disappeared.”

  21

  Time to kill. Could there possibly be a worse concept? Time, every moment of it, is so magnificent. Time is spectacular—even if instants of it could be freezing. But she’d realized how to get clothes. And food. Now, full, and warm, she’s standing at Coit Tower taking in the evening over the bay.

  The bay that she is not moldering in.

  She’s on the bike, which isn’t moving, and she’s balancing. It’s where she is right now, balancing between the open, free wonder of life and the tense focus she’ll need for the meeting an hour from now. She’s not afraid, though. She would have been a couple days ago, but now the power is hers. She won’t be demanding much. She doesn’t want money, she never did, not for herself, only for Ginger. She would have given her life for Ginger. And now Ginger will be okay. And she is still alive. Both!

  But that crosswalk attack this morning had been a warning. One she needs to push back against hard. That’s not going to be a problem. She has the phone and the power and she can expose everything at will. If she decides to, she can.

  But she won’t if she doesn’t have to, she’ll make that clear. She won’t demand money. She’s not passing judgment. It’s just that after the last twenty-four hours everything’s changed. She’ll make her deal and pedal off.

  She’s not a fool. The meeting place has to be hidden from view, but she’s chosen carefully. No one will be lurking in the shadows beside the Ferry Building, and yet there will be people within shouting distance. She can shout, attract passersby, shine light on what’s happening; she can destroy the whole plan if she has to.

  Or she can elicit the gift of a ticket, at which point she’ll roll her bike onto the ferry, roll it off in Tiburon, and then pedal north into the rest of her life.

  22

  Police flashers were lighting the damp pavement like early Christmas decorations. Brakes were squealing, squad car doors flying open. What had gone down inside was more squabble than serious. But we’d had the mayor and a supervisor shot in City Hall years before, and no one has forgotten. Any melee here is big stuff.

  Out of one of the cop cars popped the last person I wanted to deal with: my brother John. If he spotted me, it’d mean an hour of questions, badgering, me hanging around, and him proclaiming he wasn’t at liberty to divulge anything whatsoever to the likes of his kid sister. And when he discovered that the asshole who’d made a travesty of this high-powered charity event had arrived with me . . .

  Not to mention the presence of Declan Serrano. Getting the chance to rag John about his sister’s "date” in front of half the department would be more than a much, much better person than the cockroach could resist.

  A cab skidded to a stop. A photographer jumped out. I leapt in.

  "Where to?”

  That issue hadn’t entered my mind.

  "You coming from this reception?” the cabbie was suddenly all eyes on the rearview, checking out my party duds.

  "I’m going to,” I announced. "To the Mark Hopkins.”

  If I had come back to the city after college, the venerable Mark Hopkins would probably have been just another venue to me. But after my twenty-year exile, stories from the far past unexpectedly cut into my thoughts. The one now, as the cab coughed up Nob Hill toward the hotel’s floodlit entry, was of my grandmother dressing up to have a last drink at the Top of the Mark with her boyfriend, the two of them looking out the window and watching the sun set behind the Golden Gate before he shipped out to be killed somewhere in the Pacific in 1943. She had been much younger than I and yet I felt a—

  But that was exactly what I did not intend to feel. I needed to head into the Mark Hopkins like I belonged there, like a woman who’d just come from a high-powered event in City Hall.

  The cab jolted to a stop. I paid the driver and strode into the lobby, up to the great wooden reception desk. It was seven o’clock, well after the rush of check-ins.

  Behind me, three couples were coming in, followed by a bellman pushing a luggage-laden cart. I strode to the counter, opting not for the newest-looking clerk, but the one more senior to him. The junior clerk was nabbed by a man behind me."May I help you?” he said, with the politeness of the professionally courteous.

  "My dear friend, Tessa Jurovik, was a guest the night before last. She thinks she left a notebook, a leather one with a design on the front. Would you see if it’s been put aside for her?”

  "I don’t believe she’s called, but let me check—”

  "She couldn’t. And now she’s got a plane out of SFO in two hours. I said I’d do this for her.” I looked at my watch.

  "The concierge—”

  "I understand. I’m sorry to rush in like this. But could you just check to see if anything was left in her room.”

  "I don’t—”

  "She just needs to know! If you can’t give it to me I understand. Just tell me if she left it.” I let my voice rise.

  "I don’t—”

  Never let a clerk complete a negative sentence.

  "Tessa had intended to stay at the Fairmont, but I told her she’d be much more comfortable here. The service, I said, is the best.” Now I leaned forward and said in a stage whisper. "Don’t prove me wrong.”

  Behind me, conversation stopped. It was a moment before the clerk said, "Certainly, madam, let me look into that for you.”

  He tapped three keys on his computer. "No record,” he announced with clear satisfaction.

  "J-u-r-o-v-i-k.”

  "I’m so sorry, madam, there’s no record of anyone by that name.”

  "I dropped her off here Saturday. In this lobby. She telephoned me from her room. You have a record of her. Please find it.” Surely Byron hadn’t made this up. If he had, he was the one who should be doing the acting.

  The man made a show of rechecking his computer. "I’m sorry, madam. I’ve looked at the entire week.”

  "It’s an unusual name. Perhaps you’ve misspelled it. Try the 'G’s’.” No record of her, what did that mean? Odd enough she’d have come here, but now, to have not come? Could she have used another name? But that made even less sense. So . . . ? I was only buying time; the clerk wasn’t going to find her under the G’s or any other letter. And he was clearly anxious to move on to the increasingly less patient folk in line behind me.

  But I couldn’t leave here empty. What did I know about her? What would he remember?

  "I’m sorry, madam—”

  "Who was on duty here Sunday night?”

  He hesitated. But I’d offered him an easy out here, particularly if the Sunday staff wasn’t on duty now.

  One of his younger colleagues spoke up. "I was on the desk then.”

  "Good,” I said. "Then let me see how I can help you remember her. She’s about my height, dark hair cut along the chin line, thin, about my age”—What made her different, other than the bridge?"—She’s a biker—”

  "Oh, the woman with the racing bike!” He gave a laugh indicating something peculiar.

  "What?” I prodded.

  "Well, uh, the thing is, we’re at the top of a hill.”

  The couple behind me chuckled at this and, relaxing a bit, the second clerk said, "She insisted on keeping the bike in her room. Wouldn’t even allow the bellman take it for her.”

  "So,” I said, "you know she was here. Why don’t you have a record of her?”

  "Well, she wasn’t using that name. She insisted on a room on our highest floor. That’s not unusual, of course. But she wanted southern exposure.”

  I must have looked puzzled.
/>   "See, most guests want views of the bay. But south, it’s only the city buildings.”

  Not the bridge! "She didn’t use that name?” I repeated.

  "If you’d given me the correct name—”

  "Which one?” I said, as if Tessa was an eccentric with a pack of aliases as well as a bicycle. "Saturday night in a south-facing room on the top floor.” I couldn’t give him time to think about what he was doing. "Was it . . . no, you go ahead.”

  He was staring at the computer but not responding. The man I’d been talking to originally was looking on.

  "There!” The second clerk pointed to the screen. "Varine!”

  "Ah,” I said, "Varine?”

  "Varine Adamé.”

  Varine Adamé? "Are you sure?”

  "Certainly, madam, it’s right there on her credit card data.”

  Varine Adamé? She skips her husband’s ceremony and her card buys a night at the Mark. What did that say?

  There was something about his expression that made me feel sure the guy had some inkling of memory about her, but I couldn’t guess what. And his focus now was in moving me on. Behind me I heard grumbling. "Can I help you with some other matter, madam? If not . . . ”

  I shook my head. I walked across the lobby, stepped into the elevator, rode up to the nineteenth floor, the Top of the Mark, and ordered one of their hundred variations on the martini.

  The tables by the windows were filled. So, I took one in the middle with a view of darkness, which was fine by me. If I’d been facing the wall it would have been even better. It was odd to be all dressed up here in the restaurant that had been such a romantic icon in city history, me, now, not staring into the misty eyes of a doomed lover, but desperate for a place to think.

  I needed to think: a lot. I’d do it better with food. I went for clam chowder. Despite the ninety-nine idiosyncratic options, my martini was Grey Goose, vermouth with two olives. (There was a choice of a dozen varieties of olive. I went with green.)